Show notes

I'm still not tired, so a few quick notes about last night's show.

Turnout was pretty light, I assume because people were worried about getting caught in the snow. (In the event, there wasn't any snow until 11 or so, and that was really light.) Chris did a pretty good job publicizing it, and there were several occasions when I would mention the show to someone only to learn that they had already heard about it through the grapevine, so I don't think there was a problem there.

Other than that, things went really well. Chris and I played for about 45 minutes and had a good time, Paul showed up on time and played from 8:30 to 10 pm (including a few songs on my piano), doing a really good job -- we had a good time and the folks who came did too.

A note about the economics of all this (perhaps this will send me to bed).

Renting out the Mediator for a night costs an absurdly low $65. Chris owns his own sound system which he can use for shows like this, so expenses are generally low; he did have to go out and buy some lightbulbs for the stage lights, which cost $8. Since he was playing for the first part of the show he wanted to get a soundman (Chris from West Side Arts who does a nice job). For setup and breakdown he relies on volunteers, which today was basically me, his friend Caleb, and his lady friend Bridget. He asked me to pick up some pizza, soda, and ice for the musicians, soundman, and volunteers, which cost me around $25.

As I said, turnout was light; there were about 21 paying listeners in the audience, and there was a $7 cover. So that's $147 in at the door. I decided that I would take care of the pizza and other stuff I brought and wouldn't let Chris reimburse me for that. Chris wanted to give Caleb some money but Caleb refused to take anything. Both of these things reduced expenses some. The soundman got $25, and Chris gave Paul $50 (which Paul wasn't very happy about -- understandably, since for instance Chris and I get $150 for playing at Nick-A-Nees, on shows where there is no cover charge, regardless of how well we draw).

So $147-$65-$25-$50 = $7. As noted, Chris spent $8 on lightbulbs for the show. So at the end of the night -- and, again, this was by most (nonfinancial) measures a fun and successful show -- Chris ended up a buck in the hole.

I sold two copies of my CD, one to a guy named Steve who comes to a lot of these shows and one to Caleb, who also provided me with a couple of CD labels a couple of weeks back.